Tata Motors Ltd, India's largest vehicle manufac- turer, will introduce a diesel version of its small car Nano to boost sales. The model will have the world's smallest diesel engine, according to two people familiar with the devel- opment.
The company though has not set a deadline for the project.
“It's far-off. There is no launch time frame for the Nano diesel as of yet,“ a company spokes- person said. “Eventually a diesel version of the Nano will come.“
The engine will be completely developed in India, said a top official at a leading engine mak- ing firm, which is working on the project.
“The company is developing an 800cc twin cylinder turbo- charged diesel engine,“ this offi- cial said. “The company also plans to use the engine for its light commercial vehicles (LCVs).“
To begin with, the same en- gine may be used in Ace--the LCV from Tata's stable.
“This is for the first time that we are developing a turbo- charged diesel engine in India from scratch,“ said the official cited above. “Earlier we used to bring the engine from our over- seas operation and modify them here.“
The Tata Motors spokes- person said that he does not have the details about the en- gine and whether it will also be used in the company's LCVs.
An analyst said that it is an at- tempt by the company to boost the patchy sales of the Nano, delivery of which started in July 2009.
“It will be a big boost for the Nano,“ said Nikhil Deshpande, research analyst at Pinc Re- search, a Mumbai-based bro- kerage firm. “But the company needs to ensure that it should be a very fuel efficient engine.“
A diesel version of the car was expected from the company right from the outset, according to Deshpande. “But its success will depend a lot on the quality of the engine and how it is tuned,“ said Deshpande. “Nor- mally, the diesel engines are bulky while the Nano is a lighter car. So, it is likely to have more vibration than a petrol version of the car and the company needs to address all these con- cerns.“
Since its high-decibel launch in March 2009, the Nano has of- ten been in the news for the wrong reasons.
There have been six known in- stances of the car catching fire.
In October 2010, Tata Motors of- fered to install additional fire re- sistant safety systems in the 70,000-odd Nanos already sold.
In December last year, Tata Motors announced that it will recall all Nanos on the streets (except for the 2012 models) to replace the starter motors.
Monthly sales of the car dropped drastically in 2010-- from 9,000 in July to 8,103 in August and 509 units in Novem- ber 2010. Sales were later re- vived with the help of some strong marketing initiative by the company. Now, it sells a Nano at a down payment of `15,000, with easy instalments.
The company sold 6,401 Na- nos in November 2011. In the April to November period the same year the company sold 39,646 units of the Nano com- pared with 40,796 a year ago.
The company is also consid- ering entering the Indonesian market by striking a contract manufacturing deal with a local company to sell the Nano and other products. Mint reported this on 16 December.
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